Lynne Stewart Update

Lynne Stewart is a woman who was an attorney. For more than thirty years she represented controversial, and often unpopular defendants. Because of work she did in providing legal council to one of her clients she was charged with conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists. In 2005 she was convicted of those charges. As a result of that conviction, in 2005 she was disbarred as well as sentenced to 28 months in prison.

Lynne Stewart

For reasons that are not entirely clear, in July of 2010 the court re-sentenced Ms. Stewart. She is now serving a 10 year sentence for allegedly perjuring herself at trial. The video shown here is a portion of Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Independent journalist, Petra Bartosiewicz, is in studio with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez discussing the Stewart case on the day following her re-sentencing. Bartosiewicz, who wrote an op-ed piece in the LA Times on this issue, entitled “The Price of Defending Terrorists”, discusses the extraordinarily harsh punishment imposed on Stewart.

Commenting on her case, human rights organization Front Line, stated that it “has had a chilling effect on human rights defenders who stand between government agencies and potential victims of abuses.

The legal defense team that is fighting on Lynne Stewart’s behalf may take this to the Supreme Court.

Posted on December 5, 2010

About Sharon Kyle

Sharon Kyle, J.D. is the Publisher of the LA Progressive which she co-founded with her husband Dick Price. Ms. Kyle is an adjunct professor of law at Peoples College of Law in Los Angeles. She sits on the board of the ACLU Pasadena/Foothills Chapter and is on the editorial board of the BlackCommentator.com. Ms. Kyle is the proud mother of a teacher and an attorney and proud step-mom of a premed student.

Comments

This appears to be a free speech issue. If she used poor judgement then she did pay, but, the judge is showing poor judgement in being so severe. I assume that the defendant did not propose or instigate terrorism but, was telling his story. Free speech! Either way justice was done and more punishment probable not called for.

Former Mayor Ed Koch, who now works for a New York law firm, said he “agreed with the verdict” and contended the jury did a “splendid job.” He said Stewart had “an obligation under the law” to abide by the prison agreements she repeatedly signed. “She was convicted by a jury who had the facts before them,” he said.http://www.thevillager.com/vil_94/lynnestewart.html

As the defense lawyer, she was part of an agreement NOT to facilitate ANY contact and that was part of a sentencing agreement.

Wellness

Carole Bartolotto: The problem with concluding that GMOs are safe is that the argument for their safety rests solely on animal studies. These studies are offered as evidence that the debate over GMOs is over. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Environmentalism

Walker Foley: Elected officials seem to think there’s only one side of this property rights argument. The people who live in these communities have rights too, but the oil companies seem to have the jump on [the politicians’] side of the fence.